The game-deciding blast handed the Sox their first loss when leading after eight innings since July 19, 2004.
Foulke, who has rankled people within the organization with his attitude early in this season, sounded weary postgame.
''Boos?" Foulke said. ''Of course I heard it. And I'm not inviting them [the fans] to my World Series celebration either. They have all the right. They can boo, they can cuss me and tell me I [stink]. Go ahead. If they don't want me to do the job, tell them to tell management. I've done a lot of good for this team but, you know, let them boo."
''Are they going to keep me from coming to the ballpark tomorrow? No. They're not going to make it any harder for me to go home and look in the mirror. I'm more embarrassed to walk into this locker room and look at the faces of my teammates than to walk out and see Johnny from Burger King booing me. I'm worried about these guys, not everybody else."
Of course, this game wasn't all Foulke's fault. He was just on the mound at the game's breaking point, as is the nature of his gig.
The collapse, in fact, was something that was built upon on a series of mistakes and curious decisions.
Like Terry Francona's decision to leave Kevin Millar in the game. Millar was the second-to-last batter in the sixth inning when the club scored five times to turn a 5-3 deficit into an 8-5 lead. Millar, therefore, wasn't due up until the eighth inning, at the earliest. And yet he stayed in, rather than come out in favor of Gold Glove first baseman John Olerud.
''We've brought [Olerud] in in the sixth inning a couple times when we've had a big lead, not when the game's going back and forth," Francona said.
In the eighth, with two outs, Victor Martínez bounced a ball inside the bag at first that Millar almost caught. Had Olerud been in the game, there's a chance the eighth inning would have been over with the Sox ahead, 8-6, rather than 8-7. Instead, Martinez's single scored a run, and Foulke had allowed both runners he inherited from Mike Timlin to score.
